Toward a “Modernizing” Hybridity
McAdoo’s Jubilee Singers, McAdoo’s Minstrels, and Racial Uplift Politics in South Africa, 1890–1898
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12786286 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chinua Akimaro Thelwell (Williams (United States), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-28 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Safundi (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1543-1304 • E-ISSN: 1753-3171 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17533171.2013.864169 |
| OpenAlex | W2335478613 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 26 |
This essay focuses on Orpheus McAdoo, an African American performer/entrepreneur who contributed to late nineteenth century Black Atlantic cultural formations. In the 1890s, he brought two tours to South Africa, the first of which was a singing troupe based on the Fisk Jubilee model. The second tour included a non-traditional minstrel show. This essay addresses McAdoo’s attempts to present racial narratives that countered the prevailing race discourse of the South African colonies. During both tours, McAdoo disseminated a specific variant of uplift politics. Racial uplift politics developed in the postbellum era as a middle-class African American response to notions of black backwardness. Advocates of racial uplift believed that discourses which advanced the notion that blacks were incapable of fully participating in modern democratic societies, could be challenged with images of black civility and refinement. McAdoo was a proponent of uplift politics, and he used the stage as a means to spread these notions in South Africa. McAdoo was able to successfully merge uplift politics with minstrelsy, two concepts that often seem incompatible. Furthermore, McAdoo was also aware of the three-tiered racial classification system of South Africa, and how it could be used to his advantage. In a “spectacularly opaque” gesture, McAdoo claimed to be “Coloured” American so that he could gain access to the cultural and social capital of mixed race identity
Art · Hybridity · Identity politics · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Race (biology · Racial hierarchy · Racial politics · Racism · Reactionary · Sociology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Historical Education Studies Worldwide · History · Law · South African History and Culture
The Afrikaners
In township tonight!
African stars
The black Atlantic
Bodies in Dissent
Uplifting the Race
Comparative Perspectives on South Africa
Love and Theft
The Tuskegee Model of Development in Africa
Of Gospel Hymns, Minstrel Shows, and Jubilee Singers
Eugene Stratton and Early Ragtime in Britain
The Sons of Ham
Orpheus Myron McAdoo
The Afrikaners
Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields 1871-1890
Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the Conceptualization of ‘Race’
The Americans Are Coming
Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town
The Political Mythology of Apartheid
Reprisals of Modernity in Black South African 'Mission' Writing
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,38 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |